


aprés l'obscurité

by orphan_account



Category: OFF (Game)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-13
Updated: 2013-06-12
Packaged: 2017-12-14 20:09:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/840895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>bad things happen when the lights go out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. un

            There is the wail of a cat in pain and it all goes dark.  
            Dark isn’t the word. No, to call this abyss dark would be to say the sugar of Zone 3 whets one’s appetite, to call the Elsen a bit of an anxious folk. This is a blackness the likes of which even he has never seen – he, Zacharie, who has seen most everything. It is perfect, impenetrable, seeming very nearly solid around him.  
            He cannot see his hand in front of his borrowed face.  
            He finds it immensely difficult to breathe.  
            What has become of the Batter?  
            He almost laughs then. His terror strikes him as foolish, a silly act of selfishness, a kneejerk reaction to one of the few moments of his life in which he truly does not know what to do. How could he be frightened when the Batter lays most likely dead in a room which he cannot enter? What must _he_ have felt, plunged into this horrible dark seconds before his inevitable demise?  
            Slowly, he backs into the space where he is sure there was a corner minutes before. When he moves to lean against the walls, he falls back into black, empty space with a cry of shock. For a moment he is convinced his heart has stopped, but no, there is a solid floor still beneath him and his heart beats on.  
            He closes his eyes, opens them again. He sees no difference. His hands curl into fists, clutching the fabric of his sweater like a child clings to a blanket.  
            The infant, the child inside the Room. What has become of him?  
            He is mumbling in his native French without even realizing it. _“Mon dieu, mon dieu, aidez-moi, s’il vous plait.”_  
            He never prays. But then, it is always said that the most atheistic man will fall to his knees and pray in a moment of horror.  
            He wants the Batter back.  
            He wants _light._


	2. deux

He settles a bit over time, like sediment to the bottom of a river. The contents of his mind seem to rush past him, while his body remains behind, stagnant.  
            Over and over he prays, begs for mercy, clings to whatever hope he may have left in the form of his own words. And then, quite suddenly, he decides to leave.  
            He will be attacked by secretaries, he knows. But a meager secretary cannot touch him.  
            What if all of the secretaries have gone?  
            The thought is all the affirmation he needs. He rises slowly, staggering somewhat, and vanishes, reappearing in the nothingness.  
            It is completely and utterly silent.  
            _merdemerdemerdemerdemerde  
            _ He can see nothing here either, but he drags himself on his belly until he falls face-first into a zone he can’t identify.  
            The black spreads over everything, covers it all like tar poured over the clean white land. Pure, the Batter had said. What would he think to see it now?  
            Oh, the Batter. He misses him.  
            The fear crawls back into his gut like bile. The nothingness is always dark, _toujours,_ but the zones had been so bright and sterile as to burn one’s eyes once the Batter’s work had been completed.  
            He feels very, very wrong.  
            He curls up into a tight ball and sobs.


	3. trois

            Slowly, painfully, he loses his mind.  
            It is very cold where he is. Presumably it is the same everywhere else. His mind, in its loss of sanity, has descended into a very clean, sensible place. This is not what he thought madness would be like.  
            It is cold here, and dark. Everywhere else he has been is cold and dark. The logical progression of thought would be to assume that the entire world is cold and dark. He nods once, impassive, and goes back to his singing.  
            _“Hey_ , Batter, Batter, _swing,_ Batter, Batter...”             
            He can’t remember which crevice of his psyche he dug the song out of, but it is distinctly familiar, as if he has heard it before. Perhaps it was before the specters – yes, that seems to be it. Before the specters. But before the specters was before the Batter, so why would there be a song about him?  
            This is illogical and his brain rejects it. It is someone else’s problem.  
            But everyone else is dead.  
            He has moved from his ball thrice, to examine the zones he had not yet seen. They were all the same, every one of them, dark and cold and empty. So he curled back into himself and stopped moving.  
            There is a sound.  
            He leaps to his feet, heart pounding. He has been off his guard, now he will pay the price, now he will die. Oh. Oh God.  
            His fear had eked away as his madness took hold. It is back now.  
            _“HELP ME!”_  
            The scream rips from his throat, each syllable agonizing on vocal cords out of use for what seems like years.  
            “Zacharie.”  
            “Batter?”  
            He is shaking violently. A long, sharp talon strokes his cheek. A monster with the Batter’s voice.  
            “It is I.”             
            “No. Not. _Menteur!”_  
            “Listen to you. You aren’t making any sense.”  
            _“ Menteur!”_  
            “It is impure to lie. I would never lie to you.” And the hot breath in his ear is familiar, the voice familiar, it is all he can do not to fall sobbing into the other’s arms.  
             The claws are on his shoulder now.  
            _“Mon cher.”_ He is speaking his language, his words soft, soothing. _“Zacharie, mon plus chéri des chers. C’est moi. Tu sais que c’est moi.”_ And though the claws are still there he slumps against him, wraps his arms around a body that’s harder than he recalls, grips shoulders covered in scaly skin that shouldn’t be exposed. There is a _snick_ of long teeth very near his temple.  
            “You’ll stay with me, Batter?”  
            “Always.” And the pain comes quickly and the screams don’t last, and Zacharie’s blood is invisible in the dark.


End file.
